Thomson Reuters and NuMedii Launch Ground-Breaking Initiative to Identify Drugs for Repurposing

Companies leverage content, Big Data analytics and expertise to improve success of drug discovery

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Nov 04, 2013, 04:00 ET

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The IP & Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world's leading provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced a strategic initiative with NuMedii, a biotech company dedicated to revolutionizing drug discovery, to identify new treatments for areas of unmet medical need. The partnership, which pairs NuMedii's technology with the authoritative, hand-curated drug and disease information and systems biology expertise of Thomson Reuters, will create an unprecedented repository of content and methodologies to systematically identify new applications for existing drug compounds.

NuMedii will use Thomson Reuters MetaCore and Integrity content, as well as Thomson Reuters Life Sciences Professional Services expertise in systems biology, in conjunction with its unique Big Data technology and databases, to find FDA-approved drugs or discontinued development compounds that are appropriate for repurposing. The companies will leverage this comprehensive collection of high-quality data, knowledge and predictive technologies to identify therapeutic candidates with the greatest probability for clinical success, in turn fulfilling NuMedii's mission to discover and de-risk drugs that target new pathologies.

"NuMedii is blending various innovative technologies and life science data to create a next generation drug discovery and development engine," said Gini Deshpande, Ph.D., founder and chief executive officer of NuMedii. "This unique partnership allows NuMedii access to an unparalleled source of knowledge from Thomson Reuters, enabling us to turbo-charge our search and discovery of new applications for existing therapies."

NuMedii's Big Data technology uses machine learning, pattern matching, and network biology algorithms to find new indications for existing drugs. Three publications by researchers at Stanford University have already shown the promise of NuMedii's approach. In each case, researchers demonstrated novel activity for existing drugs in preclinical experiments as predicted by NuMedii's technology. Most recently, researchers showed that certain antidepressants identified with NuMedii's technology have activity in experimental models of small cell lung cancer.

After a novel treatment is identified and validated in appropriate preclinical models, NuMedii will optimize the formulation and administration of the drug for the new use and advance the program to early clinical development. In most cases, NuMedii expects to leverage the expedited 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway in the United States for drugs previously approved by the FDA. NuMedii ultimately looks to license the drug to specialty pharmaceutical companies, as it has done with Aptalis Pharma. In its work with Thomson Reuters, NuMedii will own and be responsible for any resulting drug development programs.

"Our collaboration with NuMedii is an opportunity to combine the leading information sources available with novel analytics, data integration and biomedical expertise in a way that has not been done before outside of a laboratory environment," said Joe Donahue, senior vice president, Thomson Reuters Life Sciences. "We are excited to be working closely with NuMedii to utilize this approach to speed the discovery of new drug candidates."

About NuMedii

NuMedii discovers and de-risks effective new drugs by translating its predictive Big Data technology into therapies with a higher probability of therapeutic success. The company's Big Data technology, originally developed at Stanford and licensed exclusively to NuMedii, utilizes large amounts of scientific data together with biological network-based algorithms to discover drug-disease connections and biomarkers that are predictive of efficacy. NuMedii translates these predictions into novel de-risked drug candidates and partners with pharmaceutical companies for development and commercialization. NuMedii is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and its investors include Claremont Creek Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. For more information, visit www.numedii.com.

About Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare and science and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs more than 60,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. For more information, go to www.thomsonreuters.com.

SOURCE Thomson Reuters